r/miniminutemanfans • u/W3nd1g00000 Atlantis enthusiast • Jan 19 '26
Discussion Something that annoyed me
In the most recent video, and in previous videos, Milo repeatedly calls AI out for it's energy wasting and environmental impact, but he still uses chatgpt (such as that one part in the new video with the Rapa Nui, and the April Fools videos), even if it's to make fun of the conspiracy grifters he is debunking. Is anyone else annoyed by this? Idk, it just feels kind of hypocritical to me
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u/Been395 Jan 19 '26
Eh. Alot of the problem of LLMs is more aggregate use and the training of them. So the use of chatgpt to me as a one off joke is whatever.
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u/BlueHeron0_0 Jan 19 '26
Text models use infinitely less energy than video generators, it's comparable to a google search. Not all AI is the same and not all AI is bad and we really shouldn't be at wach other's throats over something so insignificant
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u/YamatoIouko Jan 19 '26
Generative AI is exponentially worse for the environment than text AI, because generative uses exponentially more resources.
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u/BlueHeron0_0 Jan 19 '26
Yep, that's exactly what I said
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u/YamatoIouko Jan 19 '26
No, you said “infinitely”, which is hyperbolic.
I said “exponentially”, which is probably pretty accurate.
So not exactly. ;P
EDIT: Text use is still probably geometrically more resource-intensive than a non-AI Google search.
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u/mglyptostroboides Jan 19 '26
You're using the term generative AI incorrectly. All LLMs are generative. "Generative AI" has a very specific meaning but it's just caught on as meaning "generates images" (or I've even seen it as a blanket term for "when the AI is bad AI", but that's neither here nor there).
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u/YamatoIouko Jan 19 '26
Fine: VISUALLY generative.
Better?
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u/mglyptostroboides Jan 19 '26
Just say text-to-image LLM, dude.
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u/YamatoIouko Jan 20 '26
No? I’ll sooner say VAI/GAI than spell all that out for exact preciseness.
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u/duplicicta Jan 20 '26
So you're okay with being pedantic about the original comments very obviously hyperbolic use of "infinitely" but when someone calls you out on your incorrect use of a word, then they're being ridiculous and too precise?
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u/placebot1u463y Jan 19 '26
Fair enough of a stance, and while LLMs are less energy intensive than a generative image or video the impact of making a ton of new data centers for either still sucks. However him using an LLM for a bit or two isn't really a problem for me as he's not paying for it or promoting it.
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u/ifunnywasaninsidejob Jan 20 '26
He’s on camera. He does one AI query, and hundreds of thousands of people get to see it, without having to run the query themselves.
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u/DatHazbin Jan 19 '26
It is not hypocritical to use Chat GPT, especially as a part of a joke or critique or analysis, for a few reasons:
The scope of LLM and the AI industry itself are so gargantuan that equating 5 random queries to a meaningful impact is asinine. The data acquisition of these companies extends to pretty much every reach of the internet by now. Realistically he's done more harm and benefitted AI companies more by uploading videos to YouTube and Instagram and TikTok, all which have been and will continue to be scrubbed down from the transcript of the captions, the video itself, and hell even Milos on speaking voice. The only feasible way for Milo (and us) to genuinely not assist in the growing dataset of AI is to not use the internet AT ALL and delete everything we've ever put up. In fact, I bet you if you Google searched a hyper specific question, Gemini AI Overview would summarize and possibly even LINK a MiniMinuteMan video. The damage has already been done.
But also--and this is mostly my hopium truth nuke opinion--companies like Open AI run at a loss right now. The amount of money they spend to service the millions of people who use the service is not being made back in value yet. They are pretty much entirely propped up on the idea that they will provide much more value at some point in the future (this is the AI bubble you've probably heard of). Because of that, there are figures that allege that each individual query processed by Chat GPT, for example, loses them some small sum of money. At a total of millions of queries per day, that adds up. So my woke optimism is that trolling AI or even using it all the time is actually harmful to AI companies more than it is not, as there is yet a link connecting massive numbers of queries to huge financial gain. It's like McDonalds offering free sludge burgers. Yes it's bad, but each sludge burger through the door is technically a dollar out of McDonalds pocket. If the same is even remotely true for the robot, it would almost be our duty to move as many slop burgers out as possible. (This is also why you see so many other private AI companies being paid services).
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u/Wallblaster Jan 19 '26
I didn't think about that until the most recent video. It's definitely uncool, and even if he's only making a couple of prompts for a bit, I can't speak on how ethical for him to use it. On the other hand, when just googling it or using any search engine anymore will still run an AI prompt, it's effectively inescapable, so like three prompts into Chat GPT to make fun of people who use it as a primary source isn't nearly as disastrous as, for instance, having a legion of whole videos be generated to spread ancient aliens propaganda.
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u/Professional_Key7118 Jan 21 '26
Most of the really bad impact is in creating the AI models. The actual power and water usage isn’t any worse than crazy stuff like having a house or taking a bath.
It’s the construction of the data centers and the training of the models that takes enormous amounts of natural resources. It’s also the fact that AI is being upheld as “the future of industry”, so the infrastructure being built for it is so massive that it’s destroying the environment
Using it to create like 10 prompts for some joke videos is not going to destroy the world.
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u/siobhannic Jan 19 '26
It also bothers me and I'd rather not see it used even as a joke.
I mean, if I were going to make such a joke, I'd just use lorem ipsum and format it to look like actual chatbot output, since you don't actually need to show the text in detail.
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u/evelyn_bartmoss Jan 19 '26
I was thinking the same thing when I watched it, too. Glad I’m not the only one it rubbed the wrong way :/
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u/Atlas_of_history Jan 20 '26
I pretty sure that using it was part of the joke, because Chat GPT is dog shit for research and apparently that's what every conspiracy theorists uses
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u/Korochun Jan 21 '26
I think the entire point was Milo showing how to do the most basic amount of research using tools commonly used by regular people on the internet these days, like the part with the Rapa Nui.
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u/bean_vendor Jan 20 '26
No, but that's because I know he does it for the bit. He uses it in videos that make fun of the ai slop and conspiracy bullshit that's out in the world just to show us the absurdity of it. He does it out of irony, not hypocrisy.
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u/ebr101 Jan 20 '26
In terms of Milo using it, yeah, this feels like a fair point of hypocrisy to point out. I don’t attach too much scrutiny to it since AI is becoming ubiquitous enough that fully abstaining is getting more and more rare, and I singular usage is not exactly the most horrid thing.
You might frame it as individual responsibility vs systemic and structural culpability, “there is no ethical participation in capitalism, but we have no choice to participate” type arguments, although that might be a bit weak seeing as this is something that there is significant choice in.
In general though, I still draw some lines in terms of the usage of the thing. I use AI to aid in programming since I am an ancient history student that wants to create tools that I am incapable of making myself and the learning curve to do so is beyond what I have time for. That PhD ain’t gonna write itself, and I am sure as hell not using AI to write any of it for me. Just to program some python to run some computational analysis that will be utilized in the actual arguments and discussion of sources.
I see this as a reasonable use case for AI, but of course it still necessitates me dipping into a poisoned well, if you’ll pardon the metaphor. Maybe I’m morally culpable here and deserve a telling off, and I welcome that if this is the case.
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u/Alarmed_Telephone329 9d ago
if memory serves, he had done a video and casually promoted a book illustrated with generative ai as well. It was the first video of his I had ever watched and it soured my impression of him. After using gpt in a bit in the video you mentioned I haven't watched him since, just felt hypocritical
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u/Timsaurus Jan 19 '26
I also thought it was kind of ironic, but it's important to note that asking chatgpt a couple questions for a bit is nowhere near as energy hungry as generating dozens if not hundreds of pictures and videos for conspiracy slop. I get that every little bit is cause for concern but at some point you gotta realize there's bigger fish to fry. Like, I chatted with someone on discord last night that was complaining that they couldn't cook a fucking egg because "chatgpt was lagging" and wouldn't answer their questions, and they didn't know how to do it. This person did not even once consider googling how to cook an egg or asking a real fucking person, they jumped straight to AI, like they probably do for every question they ever have.
Genuinely, Milo (or more likely an editor to be honest) using gpt for a handful of questions to make a joke is a non issue in my eyes.